Best Films Of The Year 2016

These Were The 10 Greatest Films Of 2016 - How Many Have You Seen?

Did anything good happen to the world in 2016? Absolutely not. At the end of 2015, things just seemed terrible. Oh how little we knew. At the end of 2016 everyone halfway interesting is dead and the world is being run by morons, absolutely confident that their lack of any idea of how to do their jobs is a virtue, because people have had enough of people who aren’t just making this shit up as they go.

You know what did happen? Some great movies. Really great ones. More good ones than most years, although blockbuster season was very 2016-y in its strident crapness. That’s something, at least. Watch these ten and for about twenty hours you might have reason to look back on the year with a tiny morsel of nostalgia. Good news: There’s more great stuff to come in 2017 (Cinematically. No empty promises on real life).

Victoria

The fact that it’s shot in one take gives Sebastian Schipper’s film a hook, but that’s not the entire reason for its success. The structure serves the story of a young woman who is about to end her night out, but then gets chatting to a group of exuberant men. A bit of mild flirtation turns into a night of crime that will leave some of them dead before the sun comes up. The one-take structure means you never have a moment to catch your breath and make sense of what’s going on. It’s more thrilling than any action blockbusters that came out this year.

Anomalisa

When Charlie Kaufmann (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Synecdoche New York) ventures into animation, you know you’re going to get something strange. Anomalisa is very strange, and also majestic. It tells of a man, very unhappy in middle-age, who starts seeing and hearing everybody as the same person, except for one woman who he believes might save him from his sadness. It has some brutal things to say about selfishness and ego, as well as accepting your own mundanity, but in, like, a funny way.

Kubo and the Two Strings

The films made by stop-motion animation house Laika have always been beautiful, but in Kubo they found a story with the beauty to match the visual. It’s the tale of a young boy who goes on a quest to find the weapons and armour he needs to defeat the more evil members of his family, and learns some very strange things about his past along the way. It dazzled more than any CG film this year. If you missed it in cinemas, which a lot of people did, treat yourself when it’s released for home-viewing. You won’t regret it.

Sing Street

So cheering. John Carney, who made the classic Once and very good Begin Again, directs this absolutely adorable comedy about Irish kids finding distraction from their miserable life at school and their problems at home by forming a band. The songs they perform – all originals; mostly very catchy – are a dance through the music of the 80s, from The Cure to Duran Duran. It’s a delight from beginning to end.

Zootropolis

What made Zootropolis so great is that it manages to hold lessons about society without smacking you around the face with its own worthiness. It’s entirely possible just to enjoy it as a buddy movie about a criminal fox and a rabbit cop teaming up to fight crime. Just that and trying to take in the countless background gags would be enough. Beneath that, though, there is some intelligent debate about cultural identity, both conscious and subconscious racism and the gentle advance of government corruption. It’s a thinker. All that and a very catchy Shakira song sung by a sexy gazelle.

Creed

It should have been terrible. Creed is the seventh Rocky movie and it’s not even a proper Rocky movie. It’s a spin-off. Awful. And yet it was a triumph, the best Rocky film since the first. This is mostly thanks to director Ryan Coogler, who brought deeper feeling out of a functional script and staged fight scenes that felt like you were ringside. We can argue over whether Stallone should have won the Oscar over Mark Rylance in Bridge of Spies (he should), but it’s certainly the best he’s ever been. That’s down to Coogler.

Your Name

In a remarkably good year for animation – there were so many greats this year that Pixar’s so-so Finding Dory may not make the Oscar shortlist – Your Name was the best. What begins as a smart, light, body-swap comedy expands into a much more complex sci-fi epic. Very funny and sometimes heartbreaking. Looks absolutely beautiful too. Anyone mourning Hayao Miyazaki’s retirement should be cheered by this very Miyazaki-ish film.

Love and Friendship

Kate Beckinsale has always been a very good actress but she hasn’t always had bountiful opportunities to show off her skills (Underworld and Van Helsing weren’t what you’d call actors’ movies). Love and Friendship is the best role of her career and she played it to perfection. Whit Stillman turned this little-known Jane Austen story into something like Mean Girls with bustles, with Beckinsale in the Regina George role. It’s the best comedy script of the year.

Arrival

Denis Villeneuve can do no wrong. Incendies, Prisoners, Enemy, Sicario and then this. The story of aliens coming to Earth and the woman trying to make sense of them before intergalactic war breaks out, Arrival has a lot in common with Christopher Nolan’s movie-making, in that it’s concerned with big, complex ideas and it’s a bit chilly. The difference here is that Villeneuve keeps hold of his idea all the way to the end, creating a film that’s dealing with a very complicated science fiction idea but does it in a way that is easily absorbed.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople

In this evil, loveless garbage year of hell and death, any respite from all the doom was welcome. That made it the perfect year for Hunt for the Wilderpeople, a film so cheerful it would require a strong effort to actually dislike it. The story of a troublesome foster kid and his reluctant foster father going on the run from the police, it’s a broad farce that never loses its heart. If you’ve seen it chances are you’re still quoting it. If you haven’t seen it, why are you making this year worse for yourself?